Hoppe Leopold, Hoppe (Rohalchuk) Yevdokiia

The Ukrainian Yevdokiia Rohalchuk and the Jew Yevheniia Kolomeiska met in 1937 while studying at the Zhytomyr paramedic-midwifery school. According to the referral, the girls came to work in the village of Sukhovolia. Yevdokiia worked as a midwife, Yevheniia worked as a paramedic. Soon both married local men. Yevdokiia connected her life with a schoolteacher, a German by nationality, Leopold Hoppe, and Yevheniia became the wife of Ukrainian Vasyl Yushchenko. In 1939, a son, Volodymyr, was born in the Hoppe family, and a month before the start of the German-Soviet war – in May 1941 both families has since added. Yevdokiia gave birth to twins Leonid and Oleksandr, and Yevgeniia gave birth to Mykhailo. However, the Yevgeniia did not have time to enjoy motherhood. Already in the fall of 1941, she received an order from the occupation authorities to appear at the collection point for Jews. The Hoppe couple convinced their neighbors to sign documents stating that Yevheniia is Polish. The local villagers loved their paramedic and without hesitation confirmed these data, but Vasyl, the husband, got scared, left his wife and son and fled the village.

Leopold and Yevdokiia helped their friend, and when there was a real threat to her life, they persuaded her to leave the seven-month-old Mykhailo with them, and join the partisan unit herself. A Ukrainian-German family took care of a Jewish boy for two years. Yevdokiia had enough breast milk for both her twins and the little guest to feed all three until they were one and a half years old.

In late 1943, as the front line approached the village, all Volksdeutsche were ordered to leave the region with the German army. Leopold and Yevdokiia had to leave a little Mykhailo with Melaniia Menivska, a neighbor, so that Yevheniia could take her son, and they went with their children to the assembly point for ethnic Germans. The family was separated here. Parts of the Red Army approached before it has evacuated. Leopold was arrested and accused of collaborating with the enemy: “By resolution of a special meeting of the NKVD dated July 1, 1944, Hoppe Leopold Avhustovych, born in 1909, was sentenced to 10 years in prison under Article 54-1a of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (treason to the Motherland). The man was accused of trying to move to Germany and unwillingness to fight in the Red Army. Although he had medical certificates about the illness. Leopold Hoppe's sick heart could not withstand the interrogations; he died in prison in 1945.

After the expulsion of the Nazis from the region, Yevheniia returned to the village and found her son. Yevdokiia and Yevhniia maintained the friendship that began during their student years throughout their lives.

In 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Leopold and Yevdokiia Hoppe as Righteous Among the Nations.

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